HEALTHY FAMILIES
NUTRITIONNOW
By Maureen Brown
Break Up with
Sugar
W
hen you think sugar, you think fun. You think happiness. You think, “I need more!” Have you ever wondered why you crave sugar or why you feel the way that you do after eating it? You may have heard that “sugar highs” aren’t real and that it doesn’t actually do anything to your body, but think about it. Think about your body. Everyone’s body requires insulin, as it is the key hormone responsible for transferring blood glucose to all of the organs in the body. Most of the organs can transform anything, like starch or proteins, into glucose if the body is lacking it, except for the brain. The brain is the only organ that requires pure glucose to function.
The American Heart Association recommends the maximum daily intake of sugar for women to be 25 grams and men 37.5 grams. 22 kiwi SPRING 2017
When you eat sugar, you are releasing serotonin and dopamine. These hormones make us feel happy, so we are inclined to continue to repeat the activity that triggered the happiness. Sugar also activates serotonin, another one of the hormones key for making people happy. When we think about indulging in a particular substance that we know we maybe shouldn’t have (like that fifth
chocolate chip cookie, for example), the amount of dopamine in our brain increases. As soon as the dopamine concentration increases, so does the craving. Then we feel like we really need to eat the entire box of cookies. One problem with a sugar addiction is that, because of the dopamine stimulation, it causes us to overeat because we’re looking for feelings of pleasure and reward. If we submit to our cravings for sugar, though, the dopamine levels drop again, leaving us feeling strung out and weak. You may be asking yourself, but how will I achieve the dopamine effect without sugar? Well, you’re in luck! By eating a high-protein diet and taking daily vitamins, you can produce dopamine naturally and it won’t leave you feeling strung out, sad, or tired after. You won’t even feel dependent on it anymore! Now, back to serotonin. As stated earlier, it is an important hormone for happiness. It helps us to feel delight and it even helps us sleep well. Without serotonin, our bodies tend to sleep poorly, feel anxious and aggressive, and the lack of it may even cause an increased appetite or increased craving for sugar. Don’t worry though, serotonin can be activated naturally just like dopamine. Serotonin is naturally found in fruits and veggies, so be sure to load up on your apple a day! People often don’t realize how dependent they are on processed or sugary foods until they try to stop eating them. It has been suggested that quitting a high sugar
SHUTTERSTOCK
Sugar is present in so much of the processed foods we eat, even if the food isn’t necessarily sweet. You can find it in many breads, pastas, salad dressings, yogurts, and granolas—you name it, sugar is probably hiding in there somewhere. This makes us plenty vulnerable to going over our suggested daily intake of sugar on a chronic basis, which may lead to many serious health issues like type 2 diabetes, cancer, and depression. The experts behind the new groundbreaking book The Sugar Detox Plan offer us the science behind our sugar addictions.